Men's national team staff at the World Championship and Olympic level are turned over regularly, while women's national program coaches are handed the reins for years at a time. Should North America's women's hockey national teams be following the men's model?
Four years is a long time in coaching, and in the life cycle of elite athletes. It's also more than double the amount of time that Canada's men's head coach got to prepare for the 2026 Olympics compared to Canada's women's coach.
On August 25, 2022, Troy Ryan was officially hired as Canada's women's national team coach, an announcement that stated Ryan would lead the national team through the 2026 Olympics, as well as each IIHF World Championship and Rivalry Series between.
Conversely, Canada's men's hockey coach, Jon Cooper, was formally announced on June 25, 2024 by Hockey Canada as the program's men's coach through the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off and 2026 Olympics.
Hockey Canada's hiring of Torornto Sceptres head coach Troy Ryan occurred at a time when the program still believed centralization could be the pathway to the Olympics, and was made in a world where the PWHL had yet to be founded. It was also prior to Ryan's hiring by the PWHL. Ryan had been Canada's head coach since 2021.
Now however, with the playing field levelled with men's and women's hockey players facing similar schedules both professionally and internationally, the question of how Hockey Canada approaches their coaching and management selection for their women's national program may be re-examined.
On the American side, USA Hockey hired Mike Sullivan on May 18, 2024, announcing the current New York Rangers head coach, then Pittsburgh Penguins head coach, as USA's bench boss for the 4 Nations Face-Off and 2026 Olympics.
USA's women's coach, John Wroblewski, joined the program as their new head coach in 2022 following the Beijing Olympics, and it was formally announced he'd lead the program through the 2026 Olympics in July 2023.
The difference between Ryan and Wroblewski is that Ryan serves as the head coach of both the PWHL's Toronto Sceptres and Team Canada, while Wroblewski's lone responsibility in coaching is Team USA.
On the men's side, Canada and USA also have separate coaches for the World Championships as those land during the NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs, meaning only coaches from eliminated teams, or non-NHL coaches can guide the World Championship roster. Each of the past two seasons, Canada has hired now former Columbus Blue Jackets coach Dean Evason as their head coach. The announcement in 2025 came in April, only weeks before the puck dropped for Worlds. USA Hockey followed a similar timeline naming San Jose Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky as head coach in April of 2025. It was Warsofsky's first time as head coach for an American national team.
It begs the question, do Hockey Canada and USA Hockey need to hand their women's national teams over to a coach for four seasons? Or can the national bodies follow a more similar path to what they utilize on the men's side, and choose a coach as the event nears.
With the women's World Championships now falling outside the PWHL calendar, there will be less impact not only on the players, but on the ability of staff to focus on a national team, and PWHL team separately.
There remains however, concern over conflicts between PWHL decisions and Hockey Canada decisions with Ryan and Gina Kingsbury splitting roles and resources between Canada and the Toronto Sceptres.
Ryan has already stated he expects Hockey Canada to go a new direction in terms of their coaching role for the next Olympic cycle and World Championship tournament, but will it be a new coach Canada hires for years at a time, or will Canada now follow the men's side and bring in coaches on a tournament-by-tournament basis?